Yesterday we went and bought a T5 HO , we put dual 24'' over it. Total wattage is 48w. That puts me at 1.6 WPG. The plants in it are java fern, anubis and giant hygrophila. This is a good increase from the single 25w we had before. Our tank is a 30g. The problem is we could have bought a dual 36" that would put us at 2.6 wpg. But then we would've probably had to get into pressurized CO2, which is expensive. Now we can make a diy co2 injector. My question i guess is do you think this is enough light for the plants? It's also got fish (assorted tetras and others) and I don't want the plants to start taking carbon from my kh buffer. Which i read can happen if you don't have enough co2 to go with your light. I'm not trying to grow a planted miracle but i'm just trying to keep my plants and fish healthy and flourishing. any opinions would be great as i'm fairly new to the added carbon and super light subject, though i've had plants in my aquariums for years that did fine without extras.

fish_4_all

03-09-2007 02:07 PM

Well there are a couple things. The first is to make sure you replace the bulbs about every 6-8 months. VHO takes out the effectiveness of the bulbs much faster. The second is to make sure that if you go to a DIY Co2 setup that you keep a STEADY level of CO2 over 30ppm. This is so important to give the plants a constant rate that doesn't fluctuate which elads to BBA and Staghorn algae. I used to inject DIY CO2 but I could not keep my levels constant so I got algae bad. I have actually stopped injecting CO2 and using Excel as my carbon source and it has worked really well.

Input your tank dimensions here. I don't know what the calculation is for VHO T5 but I know that T5 is about equivelant to Power Compacts so that is the section to look at. Is the 48 watts the standard rating or the VHO rating?

squiggles1

03-09-2007 02:29 PM

12" from front to back, 17" from top to bottom, 35" from side to side. (these are internal measurments not the outside). i believe it's standard wattage. it's 2 24 w bulbs(there are reflectors to).

fish_4_all

03-09-2007 02:48 PM

If you can look at the bulbs and see the wattage, try to do that. T5 HO is overdriven if I remember right and is possibly a much higher wattage, possibly as high as 100 total watts but likely closer to 80 or so. I will try to find someone who know can tell you better about the overdriven and help you figure out what the actual wattage output is. I could be wrong but I want to make sure so you don't get invaded with algae of all types and not know why.

The site does give some more information about T5 and other lighting. I don't have any experience with them so I have to find the resources myself.